In part six of the 7-part Utah Midland Railway series, Al Lindop provides an in depth look into the scratch built mines on the Utah Midland. The segment begins with a look at a mine located in Miller Pass, a town located on the model railroad. Miller Pass is home to a miner supply company, miner shacks, several stores, and two large mines. This particular mine is the very first mine built by Al. Half of the structure is built in place on location and half is completely workbench produced. The structure rests on foundation pieces that have been built permanently in place.

Al also speaks with Allen Keller about his desert layout and the railroading hobby in general. First, Allen asks Al if he receives any personal fulfilment from the hobby. Next, he asks Al what kind of control system he uses and how it works. Then, he asks Al a couple questions regarding the fleet on the Utah Midland Railway. Allen specifically asks about the diesel fleet and the hoppers on the track.

Only one segment remains of the Utah Midland Railway series. In the conclusion of the series, Al Lindop demonstrates how to weather hopper cars. With over 100 hoppers on his layout, Al has plenty of experience with weathering them.

If you’re building a long backdrop for your model railroad layout, you’re going to have to connect the boards together using nails or staples, which means you’ll end up with a fairly visible seam. Expert modelers generally have a couple options during the process of model railroad backdrop construction to cover this seam, but we’ve

Next in our journey along the C&S Railway, we leave the main line and follow a branch line through Ruby Junction. Ruby Junction joins together Kebler Pass and Irwin, which sit in the high mountains of Colorado. To make the town of Ruby come to life, expert modelers took advantage of a variety of techniques

At the northwest corner of our expansive model railroad scene we find Floresta Junction, a large staging yard for the C&S and D&RGW railways. In the yards of Floresta, trains travelling both the Colorado & Southern and Denver and Rio Grande Western railways drop shipments and are turned around and reloaded for return journeys, but

The first thing you have to consider when building the benchwork for a new model railroad scene is the type of layout you are looking to construct. There are pros and cons to the various types of benchwork, so it’s important to understand the components of your project before you get started on the frame.